Implemented Group Voicemail

[justin.laferriere]

In other IP-PBX systems, there's an option to enable a general voicemail box for the group, and it's an option that I've been requested to set up for a client, as their old phone system was capable of doing so.

It would work along the lines of when a group receives a voicemail, it activates the MWI light on the phone of the users in that group to notify them of the message, as well as showing the new voicemail in the 3CXPhone software for the users in that group (possibly with a different header to differentiate the group voicemails from the personal voicemails). When a user in that group listens to the general voicemail, it would turn the MWI light off.

I know that there's the option of sending the voicemails to an email address, but I still feel like this would be a beneficial feature to have, and would help transition users from other phone systems to 3CX.

 

[syrit]

Re: Shared voicemail access

Not in the 'SP3' service pack (if you can call it that) either. Wonder if any of the suggested ideas on the subcategory are going to be implemented in V15 :roll:

 

[SteveT44]

We could use this feature also. Please add!

 

[[email protected]]

I would really like this too. Group Voicemail boxes with WMI and LED for the Group members. We realy Need this feature!
Thanks.

 

[vitaminc]

This is Must-Have!
I think it's a good idea to implement more group-based features.

 

[microsmiths]

TBH I was surprised not find this in v15, could we have it soon please ? Thank you

 

[Sp0oK]

We really could do with this feature. Hope that we can see it soon in an upcoming SP

 

[alchemy]

Definitely a good idea... please add!

 

[GLeonard]

I've keep revisiting 3CX every so often to see if this feature has move into reality. In my world (a Dr office) we don't assign people to an extension you assign more based on a task. So we have two people working the front desk who handle calls appointments, refills, etc. If both are working other calls the next in coming call rolls into a voicemail. As of now 3CX forces you to use a "virtual extension" or a physical. With a virtual extension nobody gets a WMI and if I sent it to a physical extension it forces the second person to randomly check the VM of the other extension. I've seen a tool that will copy VM's from one extension into multiple ones but that would have multiple task workers working the same VM - thus not a good solution. In my example I've used a small office but in actuality even large call centers would benefit. I've called into support where I have the option to wait for 45 mins or I could leave a message. I'm going to *guess* these centers may not be using 3CX. I like 3CX but the lack of this feature is keeping me on *.

 

[N_G]

This feature is much requested and in queue for development. We expect that in a few months time we will have worked thru our backlog and be able to do features like this quite rapidly.

 

[VoIPTools]

I have 2 solutions for you that work VERY well.

(1) create a dummy extension with voicemail, and create a secondary account on your phones that register to this "group" extension. On your phone (I tested with Yealink and others) you will see a MWI and when pressed the phone will prompt you with the number of voicemails assigned to your primary extension, and a separate entry for the number of voicemails in the 2nd account. The phone will allow you to pick the voicemail box of either account. When anyone listens to the voicemail, the MWI turns off for everyone so you don't have lots of people chasing the same voicemail.

(2) Our add-on "3CX Voicemail Manager" has both Group Voicemail, and Voicemail Escalation. With Group Voicemail, you designate a group extension, assign members to this group, and when someone leaves a voicemail in this extension, the voicemail is propagated to the voiceemail box of all the group members. This is a great solution if you have a weekly management meeting that was postponed, and you want to let the group know, or if the CEO wants to send a company-wide message.

With "escalation" you specify how long voicemails are permitted to go unheard (unique setting per 3CX extension group) and if a call goes unheard for too long, an email is sent to the extension group managers with the voicemail as an attachment. This is a perfect way to ensure an important voicemail never goes unheard when a salesperson is on vacation.

 

[N_G]

An update in regards to this. Adding a voice mailbox to a ring group is possible. Voice mails could then be delivered by email to all ring group members, with or without the voice mail. Group access to the voice mail would also be possible by logging into that particular voice mailbox with number and PIN, although i think getting it by email is much more convenient.

 

[Jason Perkins]

I have enabled the Yealink extension to create a group voicemail as a second account on the phones. The only problem is that the phones provison and show the message indicator with number of voicemails on the screen, then after about 5 minutes it resets to 0. If you choose Set Voice Mail and select the group voicemail account it shows again the correct number of emails....for only 5 minutes. Almost like it keep defaulting back to the primary extension for some reason.

 

[frog]

Yes agree HG vociemail please

 

[OCWI]

We have a make or break large deployment that needs this feature. Nick, what is the status of this???? Are there ANY other viable workarounds not mentioned here?

 

[SECOIT GmbH]

Would be good to see this implemented.

As for Nick's comment:
Using a virtual extension as Voice Mail for the group and sending messager to the members via e-mail is not practical in my opinion since you don't know when you see the e-mail in your inbox if someone else from the group already processed that voice mail (of course there are workarounds to it like shared Exchange mailbox but no good real-life solution).
In my opinion the best practical way of implementing it would be a proper group mailbox that causes the MWI light to blink on all IP phones if there is a new message and also to turn the MWI light off on all IP phones if there is no more new message on the shared voice mail (and of course if the individual extension doesn't have a message on their "own" mailbox).

 

[Scot Busby]

I have 2 solutions for you that work VERY well.

(1) create a dummy extension with voicemail, and create a secondary account on your phones that register to this "group" extension. On your phone (I tested with Yealink and others) you will see a MWI and when pressed the phone will prompt you with the number of voicemails assigned to your primary extension, and a separate entry for the number of voicemails in the 2nd account. The phone will allow you to pick the voicemail box of either account. When anyone listens to the voicemail, the MWI turns off for everyone so you don't have lots of people chasing the same voicemail.

(2) Our add-on "3CX Voicemail Manager" has both Group Voicemail, and Voicemail Escalation. With Group Voicemail, you designate a group extension, assign members to this group, and when someone leaves a voicemail in this extension, the voicemail is propagated to the voiceemail box of all the group members. This is a great solution if you have a weekly management meeting that was postponed, and you want to let the group know, or if the CEO wants to send a company-wide message.

With "escalation" you specify how long voicemails are permitted to go unheard (unique setting per 3CX extension group) and if a call goes unheard for too long, an email is sent to the extension group managers with the voicemail as an attachment. This is a perfect way to ensure an important voicemail never goes unheard when a salesperson is on vacation.

Thanks for this post - I am looking for a similar function as our office has a general voicemail box for (1) callers can opt into if they don't want to wait or don't want callback feature and (2) after hours calls. We are in the process of migrating from a Cisco VoIP system to the 3CX and I'm trying to mimic this main number voicemail and cannot figure out how. I like the idea for #1, but I'm not sure how to implement this feature. Can you provide a little more detail on how this is setup/works? Thank you!

 

[N_G]

Group voice mail now in update 1 of 15.5

 

[Kevnich2]

I'm sorry but the way this "Group voice mail" feature is implemented in update 1...is far from workable. I was very excited when I saw it, until I saw how it was put together. It's simply another email that distributes to several people?? How is that a workable solution to a shared voicemail box? If 10 people are associates with this shared voicemail, how are they supposed to know WHO calls back the customer that left the voicemail? No one knows who actually handled that voicemail, which means all 10 will have to listen to it and more than likely, several will end up dealing with it or assume someone else took care of it and no one calls the customer back. To me, it's still a mess.

What needs implemented is a proper shared voicemail system. A good example is one that can be assigned to extensions or extension groups and shown somehow in the webclient as a shared voicemail box that also would show the voicemail, indicate which voicemails have been dealt with and by whom and ability for one or several extensions to be able to delete past voicemails. If an extension belongs to several shared voicemails, they would see the different ones they're members of.

 

[OCWI]

What needs implemented is a proper shared voicemail system. A good example is one that can be assigned to extensions or extension groups and shown somehow in the webclient as a shared voicemail box that also would show the voicemail, indicate which voicemails have been dealt with and by whom and ability for one or several extensions to be able to delete past voicemails. If an extension belongs to several shared voicemails, they would see the different ones they're members of.

This

 

[GLeonard]

I'm sorry but the way this "Group voice mail" feature is implemented in update 1...is far from workable. I was very excited when I saw it, until I saw how it was put together. It's simply another email that distributes to several people?? How is that a workable solution to a shared voicemail box? If 10 people are associates with this shared voicemail, how are they supposed to know WHO calls back the customer that left the voicemail? No one knows who actually handled that voicemail, which means all 10 will have to listen to it and more than likely, several will end up dealing with it or assume someone else took care of it and no one calls the customer back. f.

If that's the case this is really a Group vMail blast. Nowhere on this thread did I see anyone asking for Group vMail to function this way. Thanks Kevnich2 for posting this as you just saved me a lot of time I would have burned setting up a test system.